(Oceanside) After losing her mother, Scout Frank absolutely wanted to keep her memory close to her. So to grieve, she decided to keep it under her skin, by incorporating her ashes into the ink of her new tattoo.
The thirty-year-old is overcome with emotion when she brings the small wooden box containing her mother’s cremated remains to the studio which offers this particular technique, in Oceanside, California.
“She was already part of me, but now she will really be part of me forever and will be able to accompany me on my adventures,” she softens.
Armed with gloves and a small shovel, tattoo artist Kat Dukes takes a small portion of the grayish ashes. In the room with immaculate white walls, she ceremoniously hands them over to her client, so that she can add them herself with ink.
“Come on, Mom! », blurts Mrs. Frank while carrying out the operation. She smiles despite the tears.
“It’s another way of respecting it, rather than having it at home” in an urn, she believes.
Known for her tattoos done point by point by hand, rather than using a machine, Kat Dukes has become a specialist in this type of funeral tattoo incorporating the ashes of a loved one.
The artist, who runs the Steel Honey studio, began exploring the technique three and a half years ago, when one of his clients wanted to make a particularly intimate tribute to his deceased dog.
The process, which she did not know, turned out to be “very simple” according to her. “All you had to do was add the ashes” to the ink.
“It made the tattoo” in homage to the animal “even more special,” judges the 32-year-old artist. “I thought it was so cool, so I kept doing it. »
These works, which she designs as “commemorative pieces”, do not leave one indifferent. The videos of their creation were a great success on social networks, but also generated a deluge of criticism.
“A lot of people think it’s unhygienic,” explains the tattoo artist, who herself inked her father’s ashes under her skin.
“Here in the United States, it’s rather frowned upon because people don’t often hear about it,” she says. “People tend to reject what is unknown to them.”
Using cremation ashes, generally sterilized by the extreme heat of cremation, carries no risk of contamination or infection, she says.
The artist also specifies that a health inspection validated his way of working and concluded that his studio did not violate any regulations.
“I love being able to do this for people because there aren’t a lot of tattoo artists who are outspoken about it,” she adds.
To honor her mother, Mrs. Frank asked her to draw a picture of a dove with open wings on her ankle.
A way to remember the expression “I dove you” – rather than “I love you” – used by her mother to declare her love for her when she was a child.
“It’s something so simple,” says the owner of a vintage clothing store, adding a very special work to her numerous tattoo collection. “But it really means a lot to me. »
